Barack Obama's Irresponsible Waffling About Gun Control
Thu Feb 28, 2008 at 06:23:09 AM PDT
Here's a quote from VirginiaDem's celebration of Obama's "Reagan-like ability to attract his listeners to his positions," which was recommended by about 500 Kossacks:
"There's a Supreme Court case that's going to be decided fairly soon about what the Second Amendment means. I taught Constitutional Law for 10 years, so I've got my opinion. And my opinion is that the Second Amendment is probably -- it is an individual right and not just a right of the militia. That's what I expect the Supreme Court to rule. I think that's a fair reading of the text of the Constitution. And so I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families."
Then came the pivot:
"Like all rights, though, they are constrained and bound by the needs of the community . . . So when I look at Chicago and 34 Chicago public school students gunned down in a single school year, then I don't think the Second Amendment prohibits us from taking action and making sure that, for example, ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out -- what are you doing?"
Obama tells everybody what they want to hear! Who cares if it's irresponsible bullshit?
First he sucks up to gun owners: "I respect the right of lawful gun owners to hunt, fish, protect their families." Then he appeases his base: Let's make sure that "ATF can share tracing information about illegal handguns that are used on the streets and track them to the gun dealers to find out -- what are you doing?"
Wonderful! Obama wants to share tracking information! What a leader! Let's see what he doesn't want.
What exactly is the "Supreme Court case that's going to be decided fairly soon" where Obama thinks it's "a fair reading of the text of the Constitution" for the Court to find that the right to bear arms is "an individual right?"
It's District of Columbia v. Heller, and there's a lot at stake:
The case tests the constitutionality of a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., where in 1976 officials imposed one of the nation's strictest gun-control laws in response to alarming levels of gun violence.
D.C. officials say they banned handguns because such weapons "are disproportionately linked to violent and deadly crime."
If the court decides there is an individual right to bear arms, it will be a huge victory for gun-rights advocates. It would reverse years of legal precedent and embolden politicians and groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) that have touted gun rights. It also likely would discourage new gun regulations and inspire challenges to other gun restrictions.
The possibility that the D.C. dispute could jeopardize a range of federal firearms laws — including those banning individuals from owning machine guns and those establishing rules for transporting weapons — has led the Bush administration to take a step back from its strong support of gun rights.
So maybe Obama's opinion that the right to bear arms "is an individual right and not just a right of the militia" isn't quite as innocuous as it sounds.
The last time the Supreme Court took up a major gun-rights case was in 1939. That dispute, United States v. Miller, involved two men who were caught transporting an illegal sawed-off shotgun across state lines. The court did not directly address the scope of the Second Amendment. Yet its decision rested on the notion that the Second Amendment protects a collective right to firearms, not an individual right.
In the years since, most lower federal courts interpreted the Miller decision to mean there was no individual right to have firearms.
Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia set the stage for the high court to weigh in when it ruled that the Second Amendment "protects an individual right to keep and bear arms ... for such activities as hunting and self-defense." The appeals court invalidated D.C.'s ban on handguns in the home.
So Obama's opinion that the right to bear arms "is an individual right and not just a right of the militia" reverses almost 70 years of settled constitutional law!
Who is this guy?
And why would so many otherwise intelligent people actually celebrate Barack Obama's right-wing reversal of 70 years of federal law, undermining the basis for any sort of gun control whatsoever, even the pitifully weak laws that already have?
In response to some substantive legal arguments in the comments, it's worth pointing out that Obama himself defines the issue in Heller as the individual right to bear arms, which supports my reading of Miller. If it's already so hard to pass any kind of gun control while the courts deny the individual right to bear arms, what would it be like if they affirm it?
For readers with a serious interest in this issue, I also recommend "another American's" comment below, under the title "The Attorneys General of Massachusetts, New York..."
The argument back and forth between "another American" and "bt1308" under the heading "incorporation" is also worth reading on both sides.
Update: Since it's really a chore to find "another American's" comment buried in so many garbage posts by Obama's thugs, I'm moving it up into the body of the diary for future reference.
New Jersey, and Maryland, along with the Corporation Counsel for the City of Chicago, all filed an amicus brief in support of the District of Columbia.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
On the merits. The text of the preamble and the other amendments in which "the people" is used support a collective sense of the phrase, or at least do not require an individual one.
I agree with the dissenting judge on the D.C. Circuit panel:
In United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), the only twentieth-century United States Supreme Court decision that analyzes the scope of the Second Amendment, the Government appealed the district court’s quashing of an indictment that charged Miller (and one other) with a violation of section 11 of the National Firearms Act, Pub. L. No. 474, 48 Stat. 1236, 26 U.S.C. §§ 1132 et seq. (1934), by transporting in interstate commerce an unregistered, short-barreled shotgun. Miller, 307 U.S. at 175 & n.1. The district court had quashed the indictment because it concluded that section 11 of the National Firearms Act violated the Second Amendment. Id. at 177. The High Court disagreed, declaring:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
Id. at 178 (emphases added). Then, quoting Article I, § 8 of the Constitution,3 the Court succinctly—but unambiguously—set down its understanding of the Second Amendment: "With obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted and applied with that end in view." Id. (emphases added). By these words, it emphatically declared that the entire Second Amendment—both its "declaration" and its "guarantee"—"must be interpreted and applied" together. Id.
(All the harassment involving tags like "turd" will be the subject of a future diary, published everywhere and anywhere it may embarass the candidate, as long as he tacitly approves the thuggery of his supporters attempting to suppress discussion on blogs like Daily Kos. So keep it up with the name-calling, empty comments, and obscenity... You're making it easier for those of us who don't trust Mr. Obama to make our case, both on Daily Kos and in the MSM. "Obama's Thugs Suppress Discussion on the Blogs"... It makes an excellent headline!)
I have also communicated this matter to Obama's press office...
Mr. Obama's supporters on Daily Kos have gone far beyond the norms of the site in attempting to suppress criticism of Mr. Obama with "empty" comments, name-calling, obscenity, flooding threads with irrelevant material, and a variety of other tactics intended to interfere with free discussion, for example at http://www.dailykos.com/...
If Mr. Obama fails to intervene in this matter, I will assume that the thugs who support him on Daily Kos are operating with his full approval, and publicize this miserable story in every possible forum.
Obama's Thugs Suppress Discussion on Daily Kos
It makes a striking headline!
